31 The Reservoir (1963) Janet Frame Frame was born in New Zealand, travelled widely and lived in Europe most of her life: she published many aoennvevelcandamemoin ‘The Reservoir’ takes place in the summer holidays. Children play and experimen, with danger a place is vividly described, and the children's point of view created. It was said to be four or five miles along the gully, past orchards and farms, paddocks filled with cattle, sheep, wheat, gorse, and the squatters of the land who were the rabbits cating like modern sculpture into the hills, though how could we know anything of mod. ern sculpture, we knew nothing but the Warrior in the main street with his wreaths of poppies on Anzac Day, the gnomes weeping in the Gardens because the seagulls perched on their green caps and showed no respect, and how important it was for birds, animals and people, especially children, to show respect! ‘And that is why for so long we obeyed the command of the grownups and never walked as far as the forbidden Reservoir, but were content to return ‘tired but happy’ (as we wrote in our school compositions), answering the question, Where did you walk today? with a suspicion of blackmail, ‘Oh, nearly, nearly to the Reservoir!’ The Reservoir was the end of the world; beyond it, you fell; beyond it were paddocks of thorns, strange cattle, strange farms, legendary people whom we would never know or recognize even if they walked among us on a Friday night downtown when we went to follow the boys and listen to the Salvation Army Band and buy a milk shake in the milk | bar and then return home to find that everything was all right and safe, that our mother had not run away and caught the night train to the North Island, that our father had not shot himself with worrying over the bills, but had in fact been downtown himself and had bought the usual Friday night treat, a bag of licorice allsorts and a bag of chocolate roughs, from Woolworth’s. The Reservoir haunted our lives, We never knew one until we came to this town; we had used pump water, But here, in our new house, the water ran from the taps as soon as we turned them on, and if we were careless and left them on, our father would shout, as if the affair were his personal concern, ‘Do you want the Reservoir to run dry?” 292 Scanned with CamScannerThe Reservoir 31 sned us. What should we do if the R : ntened US. \e Reservoir ran dry? rat tyke and Will in the desert? yatvculd peice, Of ike < é ‘gives pes esrvoit”ourmother said, ‘gives pure water, water safe to drink without boiling it’ water was in a different class, then, from the creek which flowed through the gully; Te adits Source in the Reservoir. Why had it not received the pampering he CS icialdom which strained weed and earth, cockabullies and trout and eels Surely the Reservoir was not entirely pure? mrtap water? reo: they sid, when we inquired. We Istned thatthe water fom the Reserv vn ‘treated’. ‘We supposed this to mean that during the night men in light-blue J be” Vn sacks over theit shoulders crept beyond the citele of pine trees which anf pe Reservoir, and emptied the contents of the sacks into the water, to dissolve alo des and prevent the decay of teeth. Cs «, there would be news in the paper, discussed by my mother with the ‘Then, at times s tl Fars over the back fence. Children had been drowned in the Reservoir ‘No child, the neighbour would say, ‘ought to be allowed near the Reservoii “tell mine to keep strictly away,’ my mother would reply. 1-50 long we obeyed our mother’s command, on our favourite walks along the lowing the untreated cast-off creek which we Joved and which flowed day ee pight in our heads in all its detail—the wild sweet peas, boiled-lolly pink, and the apt growing along the banks; the exact spot in the water where the latest dead sheep raid be found, and the stink of its bloated flesh and floating wool, an allowable earthy tak which we accepted with pleasant revulsion and which did not prompt the ‘inky- piky I smell Stinkie’ rhyme which referred to offensive human beings only. We knew Miter the water was shallow and could be paddled in, where forts could be made from the rocks; we knew the frightening deep places where the eels lurked and the weeds were tangled in gruesome shapes; we knew the jumping places, the mossy stones with their dangers, limitations, and advantages; the sparkling places where the sun trickled beside the water, upon the stones; the bogs made by roaming cattle, trapping some of them to death; their gaunt telltale bones; the little valleys with their new growth of lush grass where the creek had ‘changed its course’, and no longer flowed. “The creck has changed its course,’ our mother would say, in a tone which implied lemor and a sense of strangeness, as if a tragedy had been enacted. Weknew the moods of the creek, its levels of low-flow, half-high-flow, high-flow which ae to relate to interference at its source—the Reservoir. If one morning the water ee the colour of clay and crowds of bubbles were passengers on every suddenly re wave hurrying by, we would look at one another and remark with the fatality and Stnce which attends a visitation or prophecy, i creek’s going on high-flow, They must be doing something at the Reservoir.” : eneon the creek would be on high-flow, turbulent, muddy, unable to be jumped i 0h Paddled in or fished in, concealing beneath a swelling fluid darkness whatever they’, the authorities, had decided to purge so swiftly and secretly from the ol And fo auily simply fol 293 Scanned with CamScanner| 31 The Reservoir For so long, then, we obeyed our parents, and ne Other things concerned us, other curiosities, fears, c I got a prize, a large yellow book the colour of cat’s me: newspapers, The Worms’ Weekly, supposedly written by first part of the holidays we spent the time si nibbling the stalks of shamrock and reading insect newspapers to the lives of those living on our front lawn down among ti the couch, tinkertailor, daisy, dandelion, shamrock, clover, a summer came. The blowsy old red roses shed their petals to by our mother year after year at the same time, ‘I “Servoip ol Year endeq Were edit ils, spiders, S of Our fro, and relating thein ag he SMe ary irocie nd ordinary ‘grace ff he regretful ref 8s. Inside it y Worms, sai iting in the long gras should haye IN utte, us e made pot ed wonderful recipe for potpourri in Dr Chase’s Book.’ Potpourri, | have g Our mother never made the potpourri, She merely quarrelled With our fy how to pronounce it. I Father over The days became unbearably long or too boring to care about. Celluloid bright pink bodies; the invisible ink h: frustrating in their smallness (two line coming year. . and hot. Our Christmas Present; (ols had loose arms and legs and win a ‘ad poured itself out in secret Messages: clea Fe) had been filled in forthe wigs of te ? Rumours circled the burning world, The sea was dry or walk to Australia. Sharks had been seen swimming inside Me eon eae attacked alittle boy and bit off his youcknow-whar Water; one shark : vy. We gave up cowbo baseball and sledding; and ‘ * where w i divorcing each other, kissin i ing eat ES from the ceiling; a frantic buzzing fill house; the twistin, the cat put out her tiny tongue, panti 2 flypapers hung led the room as the flypapers became cronded, Eee ‘ing in the heat, Who would sit beside us, who wor ld be our best friend? The earth crackled in early-autumn haze and still the February sun dried the word; fing-iron outside by the cellar stayed warm, but with ‘marks on it; the days were still long, with night face to face with morning thing in-between buta snatch of turning sleep with the blankets on the hs «avs Wide open to moths with their bulging lamplit eyes moving throught! it grandfather bodies knocking, knocking upon the walls. and almost not and the wind dark and the 294 Scanned with CamScanner |The Reservoir 31 after day the sun still waited to pounce. We were tire raha pele and peed again, the akin on our feet Wabtarigiters vase bar pur bodies clung wit the salt of sea-bathing and Macedo and sweat, the towels were h Is re harsh. salt. n, we said again, and were glad; for lessons gave shade to rooms and rooms an rooms were cold and sunless. Then, swifth iseane camé 6 . ly, suddenly, disea Paralysis. Black headlines in the paper, listing Rep unliecol cies ses, the . Infantile hs. Children everywhere, out in the country, up north, down south, two : " er of deat! away shoots did not reopen. Our lessons came by post, in smudged print on rough I paper; they seemed makeshift and false, they inspired distru: He Fevwith the lure of the sun sill shining, ating need eu ae ap ei Mays were t00 fong, there was nothing to do, there was nothing to dos the lessons were jathe front room with the navy-blue blind half down the window and the tiny splits spr showing through, and the leson papers sometimes covered with unexplained ie sk asi the machine which had printed them had broken down or rebelled, the cons were even more dull. ient Egypt and the flooding of ne Nile, when we possessed a creek of our own, with individual flooding! iI Iet’s go along the gully, along by the creek, we would say, tired with all these. ne day when our restlessness was at its height, when the flies buzzed like bees flypapers, and the warped wood of the house cracked its knuckles out of boredom, for something to do in the heat, we found once again the only solution to our the Nile! Someone said, ‘What's the creek on?” alf-high flow” and carrying switches of willow. $0 we set out, in our bathing suits, n!’ our mother called. ll right. We knew. ‘Sunstroke when the sun clipped you ove! king you flat on the ground. Sunstroke, Lightning. Even tidal waves were this Southern coast. The world was full of alarm. don’t go as far as the Reservoir!’ fe dismissed the warning. There was enough to occupy us along the gully without sting the Reservoir. First, the couples. We liked to find a courting couple and must do because they were tired or for other liked to make jokes eep your sun hats 0} r the back of the head, threatening W them and when, as we knew they they found a place in the grass and lay down together, we them, amongst ourselves. ‘Just wait for him to kiss her) we would say. ‘Watch. A beaut. Smack.’ ‘ a ; We were waiting t We speculated Scanned with CamScanner31 The Reservoir about technical details. Would he wear a frenchie? If he didn’t wear a frenchi would start having a baby and be forced to get rid of it by drinking gin, Fren the way, were forsale in Woolworth's. Some said they were fingerstalg were frenchies and sometimes we would go downtown at the frenchies for sale, We hung around the counter, died laughing, it was so funny. After we tired of spying on the couples wi rth’ jus times ye sniggering. Som, = ty © would shout after them as we Went our a Pound, shillings and pence, a man fell over the fence, he fell on a lady, and squashed out a baby, pound, shillings and pence! Fometimes a slight fear struck us—what if a man fell on us like that and squasheq a chain of babies? out , that we would some day visit the vay as leaving school, getting a job, marrying, And then there was the agony of deciding the right time—how did one decide these things? “We've been told not to, you know, one of us said timidly, That was me, Eating bread and syrup for tea had made my hair red, my skin too, so that I blushed easily, and the grownups guessed if I told a lie, ‘Its a long Way,’ said my little sister, “Coward!” But it was a long way, and Perhaps it would take all day and night, a have to sleep there among the pine trees with the owls hooting and the old nests Warrens which now reached to the Centre of the earth where pools of molten: oe ey waiting to seize us if we tripped, and then there wea ve erying sound made bys it und of speech at its loneliest level where the meaning is felt but nevet eae < "oes on and on in a kind of despair, trying to reach a point of understan hem bao? We knew that pine trees spoke in this way. We were lonely listening to Set We knew we could never help them to say it, whatever they were trying 105% wind who was so close to them could not help them, how could we? cave i Oh no, we could not spend the night at the Reservoir among the pine | ac Scanned with CamScanner‘The Reservoir 31 taker and his gang have been to the Reservoir, Billy Whittaker and the jttaker a moon. whi ather gang, OM n vesay what itwas Tike er said.” Onlya day or two ago our mother had been reminding usin an ominous true hich roused our envy just as much as our dread, ‘Billy Whittaker was years ago. Infantile paralysis” lucky. None of us dared to hope that we would ever be surrounded Id have to be content all our lives with paltry flesh 1g to the Reservoir or not?” trying to sound bossy like our father; crower Ito hale Tunch at all today or not?” aomeck our sticks in the ait. They made a whistling sound. They were supple and er a had tried to make musical instruments out of them, time after time we hacked ijlow and the elder to make pipes to blow our music, but no sound came but our ee and why did two sticks rubbed together not make fire? Why couldn't we ever ¢ bits of the world lying about us? ‘An aeroplane passed in the sky. We craned our necks to read the writing on the ving, for we collected aeroplane numbers. The plane was gone, in a glint of sun. ‘Are we? someone said. “ff theres an eclipse you can't see at all. The birds stop singing and go to bed.” Well are we?” Certainly we were. We had not quelled all our misgiving, but we set out to follow the eek to the Reservoir. ‘What isit? I wondered. They said it was a Jake, I thought it was a bundle of darkness ‘reat wheels which peeled and sliced you like an apple and drew you toward them demonic force, in the same way that you were drawn beneath the wheels of a train you stood too near the edge of the platform. That was the terrible danger when the ited came rushing in and you had to approach to kiss arriving aunts. ‘We walked on and on, past wild sweet peas, clumps of cutty grass, horse mushrooms, Wort, gorse, cabbage trees; and then, at the end of the gully, we came to strange My, fences we did not know, with the barbed wire tearing at our skin and at our Put on over our bathing suits because we felt cold though the sun stayed in the sky. sed huge trees that lived with their heads in the sky, with their great arms 4 ene with age and the burden of being trees, and their mazed and linked 4 are of earth, like bones with the flesh cleaned from them. There were j a, to be opened or climber over, new directions to be argued and plotted, ich said TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED BY ORDER. And as —‘Well am I to have salmon Scanned with CamScanneroa | 31 The Reservoir there was the remote immovable sun shedding without gentleness its burning upon us and upon the town, looking down from its heavens and cong our infantile-paralysis epidemic, and the children tired of holidays and wanting, back to school with the new stiff books with their crackling pages, the scrub fe with the sun rising on one side amidst the twellths, tenths, millimetres, the ney oe to be sharpened with the pencil shavings flying in long pickets and light-brown a scalloped with red or blue; the brown school the bare floors, the clump clump je corridors on wet days! We came to a strange paddock, a bull-paddock with its occupant planted deep Jong grass, near the gate, a jersey bull polished like a wardrobe, burnished fie heavy beams creaking in the wave and flow of the grass. PP, influence o ‘Has it got a ring through its nose? Is it a real bull or a steer?” Its nose was ringed which meant that its savagery was tamed, or so could be tethered and led; even so, it had once been savage and it kept its p steers who pranced and huddled together and ran like water through the py no impression, quarried no massive shape against the sky. The bull stood alone. Had not Mr Bennet been gored by a bull, his own tame bull, and been rushed to Glenham Hospital for thirty-three stitches? Remembering Mr Bennet wecreptcautousy close to the paddock fence, ready to escape. Someone said, ‘Look, it’s pawing the ground!” A bull which pawed the ground was preparing for a charge. We escaped quickly through the fence. Then, plucking courage, we skirted the bushes on the far side of the paddock, climbed through the fence, and continued our walk to the Reservoir We had lost the creek between deep banks. We saw it now before us, and hailed it with more relief than we felt, for in its hidden course through the bull-paddock it had undergone change, it had adopted the shape, depth, mood of foreign water, foamingin | a way we did not recognize as belonging to our special creek, giving no hint of its depth. | It seemed to flow close to its concealed bed, not wishing any more to communicate with us We realized with dismay that we had suddenly lost possession of our creek. Who had taken it? Why did it not belong to us any more? We hit our sticks in the air and forgot ov" dismay. We grew cheerful. ee Till someone said that it was getting late, and we reminded one another ee : day the sun doesn’t seem to move, it just remains pinned with a drawing it alone sky, and then, while you are not looking, it suddenly slides down quick ae off head of a golden eel, into the sea, making everything in the world go dark ‘That’s only in the tropics!” gitferent oo! We were not in the tropics, The divisions of the world in the atlas, the cubicles of latitude and longitude fascinated us. “The sand freezes in the desert at night. Ladies wear bits of sam ‘grains... we thought; it ride, unlike the adddocks, made 298 Scanned with CamScannergrains or bits of sand as necklaces, The Reservoir 31 sith necks like snails . swith horns, do they have horns? Stocks goes with boys, and the camels , “minnie know who your boy is, | know who your boy is, .. Waiting by the garden gate, Waiting by the garden gate... swe'll never get to the Reservoir!’ whose idea was it?” ‘Tve strained my ankle!” Someone began to cry. We stopped walking. pve strained my ankle.” ‘There was an argument. rs not strained, it’s sprained.’ “strained.” “sprained.” ‘Allright sprained then. T'll have to wear a bandage, T'l have to walk on crutches... “Thad crutches once. Look. I've got a scar where I fell off my stilts. Its a white scar, ‘acentipede. It’s on my shins.” ‘shins! Isn't it a funny word? Shins. Have you ever been kicked in the shin s?" “shins, funnybone . . {ts humerus. . . .” ‘knuckles . . .” ‘a sprained ankle . ‘astrained ankle...” ‘a whitlow, an ingrown toenal il the roots of my hair warts spinal meningitis infantile ‘infantile paralysis, Infantile paralysis you have to be wheeled in a chair and wear ison your legs and your knees knock together...” : ‘Once you're in an iron lung you can’t get out, they lock it, like a cage: -- - pe go in the amberlance . . .” “ambulance...” “mberlance ae Ambulance to the hostible. ...’ the hospital, an amberlance to the hospital. ° “fantite Paralysis...’ Scanned with CamScanner31 The Reservoir ‘Friar’s Balsam! Friar’s Balsam!’ ‘Baxter's Lung Preserver, Baxter's Lung Preservert’ ‘Syrup of Figs, California Syrup of Figs! ‘The creek’s going on high-flow!’ Yes, there were bubbles on the surfa ee, and the water was were dispelled. It was the same old creek, and there, suddenly, just ahead Our dy of pine trees, and already the sighing sound ee it teached our ears a eS Dlg approached it, staying close to the banks of ove newly claimed cree} troubled “I creek deserted us, flowing its own privars Course where we could wort Le aga M4 ourselves among the pine trees, a narrow Strip of them, and beyong jaio™ and sparkling water, dazzling our eyes, its eonere chopped by ti a river, nor a sea, “The Reservoir!’ The damp smell of the pine ne: the constant sighing of the trees. We Waves beyond the shore, in an al ', NOW grey, Petticoats, lettuce ue Sh, as if Something were sleeping ang should always, telling us, to ‘ush-sh in 7 ‘The Reservoir, The Reservoir!’ A noticeboard said DANGER, RESERVOIR. Overcome with sudden glee we climbed through the fence and swung on the lover branches of the trees, s i +houting at intervals, gazing possessively and delightedly atthe sheet of water with its Wonderful calm and menace, ‘The Reservoir! The Reservoir! The Reservoir!’ We quarrelled again about how to Pronounce and spell the word. pe ia Then it seemed to be Setting dark—or was it that the trees were Sy ais and keeping it above their heads? One of us began to run, We all an, no the sun Tet cAting about our strained ee sprained ankles, through the trees out ere ou ek bo the creek, but it was Our creek no longer, waited for us. We wished it ear night? Woo’ we wished it were our creek! We had lost all account of time, Was it 300 i Scanned with CamScannerr- a ok, The Reber al .n the banks of the creek that did not he wild sweet peas and the tussocks and the dead sheep? 7 the ereek, as people said they did, and on their travels Je who would threaten us and bar our ‘standing arm in arm in their black fallow us? Would they ever let us go ve us Infantile Paralysis, 1d know where we were, us, would we have to sleep 0 entake US te “3 ny more> ST : i P. some = retold th jocks would ‘hey change into peop! jdt the P'SSpRS WILL BE PROSECUTED, HOUR ESPASY =”, their mouths OPOM ready to SW: swaying re ong the gully? Perhaps they would gi aletpje to walk home, and fio one wou wath its own special Key! Ting and soratehed. How strange! The sun Was sti orca Id never we WOU! esta? fg an iron Tune wears nome? pant inthe sky! mre questo” troubled us, yer was decided for kiddies. Where have you ill in the same ‘Should we tell?” s. Our mother greeted us a been? I hope you didn’t .s we went in the door with, go anywhere e ans aoubavent been One away, parite RESTVONE : urfather looked UP from readin; spot me catch yOu EOIN ee 1-of-date tl Wesaid nothing. How ou! his newspapers. 1 the Reservoir! hey were! They were actually afraid! Notes po Anzac Day 92 Salvation Army way and witl p32 Woolworths - in $298 Burke and Wills - nineteenth-century Australian desert 234 potpourri - dried petals us 12% frenchie - condom 297 ‘iron lung - a large cylinder ‘whose lungs were damaged Friar's Balsam etc. - medicines nce for those killed in war Jigious organisation, structured in a military 0 often march in the streets - day of remembra - Protestant rel h brass bands wh expensive department store European explorers who died in the ed to scent a room in which the patient would lie — for treating patients and could not breathe unaided Scanned with CamScanner